[HN Gopher] FCC allows blocking traffic from robocall-friendly p...
___________________________________________________________________
FCC allows blocking traffic from robocall-friendly provider One Owl
Author : kimi
Score : 175 points
Date : 2023-08-02 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (docs.fcc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (docs.fcc.gov)
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Wow: the FCC publicly shames the perpetrator including LinkedIn
| URL of the person. That's new behavior and might actually be a
| decent deterrent.
|
| ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/aashay-khandelwal-ab6179238 )
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| As they should. Companies are run by people. People should be
| accountable. The CEO is accountable.
| mrandish wrote:
| I've looked into the history of some of these perps before and
| I'm always shocked at how many chances they've been given to
| stop being shady-as-fuck scammers and it's almost like they're
| addicted to it. So yeah, they deserve whatever the FCC, FTC or
| whoever is dishing out (and probably much more).
|
| Looking through this docket, these assholes have playing
| stalling games for _years_ and they STILL aren 't blocked yet.
| They get at least 14 days to respond, then the FCC has to
| decide they're still doing it, then it'll take another 30 days
| for the block to be mandatory.
|
| > _One Owl will have at least 14 days to respond to the Initial
| Determination Order. Id. SS 64.1200(n)(5)(ii)-(iii). > If One
| Owl's response to that order is insufficient or One Owl
| continues to allow substantially similar traffic onto the U.S.
| network, then the Bureau will publish a Final Determination
| Order in EB Docket No. 22-174 finding that One Owl is not in
| compliance with section 64.1200(n)(5). Id. SS
| 64.1200(n)(5)(iii). > In the event that the Bureau issues a
| Final Determination Order in this matter, pursuant to section
| 64.1200(n)(6) of the Commission's Rules, all U.S.-based voice
| service providers shall be required to block One Owl's traffic.
| Id. SS 64.1200(n)(6). Providers must monitor EB Docket No.
| 22-174 and initiate blocking beginning 30 days from the release
| date of the Final Determination Order._
| dmvdoug wrote:
| They had the Instagram for one of his accomplices. Awkward.
| stock_toaster wrote:
| Not just robocall friendly apparently, but a serial offender,
| with new company names but the same behavior.
|
| ref: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-395670A1.txt
| allanrbo wrote:
| A little bit off topic, I know, but I love how the FCC is using a
| plain text file here. No nonsense!
| sgustard wrote:
| Change the file extension to pdf, there's a pdf version, same
| for doc.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| There could be an unfortunate consequence of this: picking and
| choosing who's traffic to accept. Telcos generally operate as
| common carriers, meaning they have to accept traffic from
| anybody. Obviously, that doesn't seem right when we don't like
| that traffic. But imagine if telcos could start deciding on their
| own which businesses they were willing to work with or deliver
| calls to. What if they could just cut off your business because
| they don't like what you're selling.
|
| I'm not saying we're on the way there - this doesn't have to be a
| slippery slope. But it's something to keep in mind.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| It's high time we start prosecuting cold robocalls as
| harassment. We don't need to fundamentally change the rules of
| the system to keep around pests that don't provide a useful or
| necessary service.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| How is this even relevant? This is specifically the FCC making
| the determination that One Owl sucks, not other telecoms.
| cirrus3 wrote:
| That's why the FCC is there isn't it? I don't see how this
| leads to telcos making that choice on their own
| babypuncher wrote:
| You're right, which is why they needed the FCC to step in and
| explicitly allow Telcos to block this specific bad actor. The
| FCC exists to ensure all the Telcos play fairly, so it's up to
| them when actions like this are allowed to be taken.
| irl_chad wrote:
| How often does the FCC allow blocking traffic?
| [deleted]
| lesuorac wrote:
| Apparently a few times a year starting from 2021.
|
| https://www.fcc.gov/robocall-facilitators-must-cease-and-des...
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Years ago I heard that SHAKEN/STIR were being implemented and
| would allow robocall blocking. I still get tons of robocalls.
| I've had this explained as "SHAKEN/STIR were the crypto that will
| eventually allow blocking, but the blocking will happen later."
| Is it later? Is this the start of the actual blocking?
| m463 wrote:
| I get calls nowadays with caller id telemarketer or suspected
| spam or similar, is this what it does?
| chaorace wrote:
| A little yes, a little no. Your phone knows when it's
| receiving a call from an unauthenticated number, but it would
| be very unreliable to use this metric alone to decide when a
| call is untrustworthy. My understanding is that carrier
| telemetry is what drives the final yes/no verdict.
| i_am_jl wrote:
| It has started. SHAKEN/STIR are what gives the FCC the ability
| to trace the source of these calls backwards and hold
| responsible the gateways acting in bad faith.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I stopped getting spam phone calls months ago. Something
| definitely changed in the last year, or maybe 2 years.
|
| It was ridiculously often in 2020/2021/sometime in 2022
| maybe?
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Hasn't changed for me. I am constantly pestered by spoofed-
| local-number spam calls at both my personal number and my
| work number, in two different area codes. My job requires
| me to be available on the phone so it's particularly
| frustrating because of how often I have to pick them up
| just to hear about a warranty on yet another car I've never
| owned.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That's a bummer. I am using ATT's mobile service, on an
| iPhone. Maybe different carriers/phones have different
| implementations?
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Also ATT/iPhone. I think Google Voice (my work line)
| routes through a different network and I do think I get
| more spam calls there.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I've gotten 6 spam calls so far today.
| sq_ wrote:
| Similar experience here. I got absolutely ridiculous
| numbers of spam calls up until maybe early 2022? Now I get
| almost none in comparison. Like 2-3 a month as opposed to
| tons every week before.
| shrubble wrote:
| This method basically has not yet been used much, but it is in
| place.
|
| The dangerous issue is that if a spam operator has 33% legit
| traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good traffic
| with it, or what? Kill the traffic... innocent people harmed,
| or leave the traffic, spam continues.
| groby_b wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| You can't do this here, and we ban accounts that post like
| this, so please don't do it again.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| cameldrv wrote:
| You tell the operator to cut off the spammers, and if they
| don't do it in a reasonable time you cut off the operator.
| INGSOCIALITE wrote:
| If a vpn has 33% legit traffic do you ban every IP range of
| their service?
| genmud wrote:
| Yes
| yetanotherloss wrote:
| [dead]
| barney54 wrote:
| Kill the traffic. The operator has to do a better job to stay
| in business.
| proto_lambda wrote:
| The operator's business is not the concern here.
| genmud wrote:
| If a bank is comprised of 66% of their customers being
| narcos, the bank gets shut down.
|
| You don't get to facilitate in illegal shit and hide
| behind your legitimate customers. Likewise, if you are a
| customer of theirs and know they heavily transact with
| illegal services, it's on you for getting blocked.
| virtue3 wrote:
| Naw they just get a slap on the wrists from the Feds and
| move on. No jail time even. Now if you and I laundered
| money to the Mexican drug cartels...
|
| "too big to jail because they are too big to fail"
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/stock-
| analysis/2013/investing-n...
| jfengel wrote:
| Their legitimate customers are. If that means getting the
| operator to clean up their act, so much the better. If
| they won't, then at some point their legitimate customers
| will suffer.
|
| And will probably have to jump to a more expensive
| provider who isn't subsidizing them with spammer revenue.
| gorkish wrote:
| > The dangerous issue is that if a spam operator has 33%
| legit traffic, do you kill the spam operator and the good
| traffic with it, or what?
|
| You are implying that "you" means the telco or FCC decides on
| behalf of "everyone." That is not the correct viewpoint. If
| the telcos are the common carrier, they dont get to decide. I
| am the customer; I get to decide. Problem solved. No
| additional regulation or debate is needed. This isn't hard.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I am the customer; I get to decide. Problem solved.
|
| If only we actually had that ability. The best mechanism
| available to me is what I do: if I get a call from a number
| that isn't in my phone book, I don't answer it.
| myself248 wrote:
| If the spam calls have spoofed source numbers, the provider
| should be within their rights to refuse the traffic
| regardless of common carrier status.
|
| I am the customer and I would love to see the data of which
| providers _originated_ each call that I'm about to answer.
| That would make it trivial to set rules about which ones
| don't even ring. But until I can have that data, I wish
| they'd just drop the obvious junk.
| gorkish wrote:
| >I am the customer and I would love to see the data of
| which providers _originated_ each call that I'm about to
| answer.
|
| The telcos have this information, but they only usually
| relay the CallerID (which is user-specified, ie
| "spoofable") to the end user. ANI, RPID, and now
| SHAKEN/STIR information which does identify the origin
| and origin carrier are simply not passed to end users to
| do anything with, or at least I have not been able to get
| them to do it despite having capable interfaces.
| robgibbons wrote:
| Thus describes the incentive, and the onus, for the provider
| to prevent spam on their network.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Kill the spam operator.
|
| Also end-users should get information from every hop, so we
| can block whatever we want with full information, client-
| side, uBlock-origin style.
| mrandish wrote:
| > if a spam operator has 33% legit traffic, do you kill the
| spam operator and the good traffic with it, or what?
|
| Yes, we should with these long-time, serial offenders. Having
| legit traffic is just a fig leaf cover for them anyway. Any
| legit reseller clueless or negligent enough to accidentally
| stumble into business with these guys will switch providers
| as soon as their customer's calls stop connecting.
|
| Also, no real telecom providers are routing meaningful
| amounts of traffic through these shady operations. Any legit
| traffic on their networks is mostly coming from fly-by-night,
| bottom-feeding telecom resellers in the same countries the
| spam calls originate from. Any retail customers of those
| resellers are probably paying ripoff prices for unreliable
| per-day or per-call service anyway. It's not people with
| normal pre-paid monthly service from any legit telco you've
| ever heard of.
| gorkish wrote:
| SHAKEN/STIR are implemented but the providers have given no
| tools to the end users to actually do anything actionable with
| it. Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a
| megacorp.
|
| The telcos might be a common carrier, but as the end user I
| sure as shit should be able to block calls originating from
| providers I see abuse from constantly. I'm looking RIGHT AT
| YOU, TxtNow.
| tjohns wrote:
| > Heck, they haven't even exposed it unless you are a
| megacorp.
|
| Cell phones surface the SHAKEN/STIR attestation status to the
| user via a checkmark in the telephone UI.
|
| If you want to programmatically act on that data to filter
| calls... Android provides access to the attestation level via
| the android.telecom.CallScreeningService API. (I can't speak
| to what iOS provides.) For VoIP, many providers will also
| either pass along the attestation level in the SIP headers or
| by appending some text to the Caller ID string.
| AdrianEGraphene wrote:
| Neat. Sounds like I gotta explore what's available there
| now. The parent comment's issue sounds like a pretty good
| feature to add to an app... thx.
| [deleted]
| supertrope wrote:
| We're still very early in the process.
|
| 1) Deploy caller ID signing. <--We are here.
|
| 2) Deploy policies to make inter-telco tracebacks easier and
| increase liability for carrying too much spam.
|
| 3) Drop unsigned traffic and shutdown spam friendly portions of
| the PSTN (analogous to open email relays).
|
| 4) Use the tracebacks and KYC to deter robocalling operations
| from getting onboarded and ban current customers who are
| robocalling. And keep them banned when they open new sockpuppet
| accounts. It'll never be completely eliminated.
|
| 5) See 4.
|
| Two-thirds of PSTN traffic is unsigned.
| https://transnexus.com/blog/2023/shaken-statistics-july/
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| >In response to the FCC's enforcement action against Illum in
| October 2021, the CEO and Director of Illum, Prince Anand
| (Anand), who sometimes uses the alias "Frank Murphy," Prince
| Anand Skype Chat, June 10, 2021 at 8:18:53 AM ("Frank Murphy"
| introduces himself as Prince Anand) (on file at EB-
| TCD-20-00030805) (Anand Skype Chat). created One Eye. Id. at
| October 24, 2021 at 8:16:14 AM and 8:16:21 AM (Anand telling
| Great Choice Telecom to expect a new sign up under the name "One
| Eye" that day).
|
| > To deflect the FCC's scrutiny, Anand intended to keep his name
| off One Eye's corporate documents. Id. at 7:40:25 AM, 8:11:13 AM,
| 8:13:20 AM, 8:14:48 AM, 8:14:55 AM, 8:15:04 AM, 8:16:14 AM,
| 8:55:50 AM, 9:01:49 AM, 9:02:21 AM, and 9:02:26 AM (Anand
| explains that due to the Commission's cease-and-desist letter he
| will "not be included in any companies" but will work "on the
| backend [sic]").
|
| > Kaushal Bhavsar, a director of Illum, became One Eye's CEO. One
| Eye LLC Listing, Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n, Robocall Mitigation
| Database (Oct. 26, 2021),
| https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table...
| (showing Bhavsar as CEO of One Eye); Illum Telecommunication,
| https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last visited July 14,
| 2023).
|
| > Aashay Khandelwal, the Human Resource Representative for Illum,
| subsequently formed One Owl and became the CEO. See Illum
| Telecommunication, https://www.illumtelecommunication.com/ (last
| visited July 14, 2023); see also One Owl Telecom Inc. Listing,
| Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n, Robocall Mitigation Database (Apr. 25,
| 2022),
| https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/rmd?id=rmd_form&table...
| (showing Khandelwal as the CEO of One Owl).
|
| > Julya Barros, a seemingly close acquaintance of Anand, Compare
| @illum_telecom, Twitter,
| https://twitter.com/illum_telecom?lang=hi (as archived by Google
| and last visited May 16, 2023) (screenshots on file at EB-
| TCD-20-00030805), with Julya Barros (@julyabarross), Instagram,
| http://www.instagram.com/julyabarross (last visited July 14,
| 2023).became Vice President of Sales and Marketing at One Owl.
| See Julya Barros, LinkedIn, https://ae.linkedin.com/in/julya-
| barros-928008245 (last visited July 14, 2023) (screenshots on
| file at EB-TCD-20-00030805).
|
| >One Owl and One Eye used the same IP address to conduct their
| business. March ITG Subpoena Response, supra note 4.
|
| > One Owl and One Eye communicated under the same email domain,
| @oneeyetelecom.com. Compare Incorp Services Interrogatories
| Response at para. 15 (on file at EB-TCD-20-00030805) (Incorp
| Services Interrog.) (showing One Eye used the @oneeyetelecom.com
| domain), with id. at para. 3 and Ex. A (on file at EB-
| TCD-20-00030805) (showing One Owl used the @oneeyetelecom.com
| domain).
|
| >The personnel connections between One Owl, One Eye, and Illum
| are summarized in the table below.
|
| The FCC is just playing whack-a-mole as soon as it begins
| enforcement on a company, the people involved just get together
| with their buddies and form a new company.
|
| This will never work to curb robocalls.
|
| Instead, the US Government needs to do the following
|
| 1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of these
| companies. If the company engages in facilitating robocalling,
| the bond is forfeit
|
| 2. Criminal charges and enforcement against the agents of these
| companies
|
| 3. Immigration action against the agents and associates of these
| companies including deportation and permanent visa bans.
|
| Only then can the US government begin to combat this. Otherwise,
| doing more of the same is going to be completely ineffective and
| a waste of time and resources.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _1. Require a $10 million dollar 5 year bond to start one of
| these companies. If the company engages in facilitating
| robocalling, the bond is forfeit_
|
| This is how you get people on HN to start howling "regulatory
| capture!"
| mschuster91 wrote:
| That used to be the case of the HN hivemind maybe three, four
| years ago (just noticed, my account is over ten years old,
| WTF).
|
| IMO, I think the general vibe here started to shift back with
| the Jan 6th putsch attempt, and completely turned during the
| Russian war: undeniable signs showing how far a situation can
| escalate when malicious actors are left to roam free, and
| that a truly free market requires at least some sort of
| regulation as guardrails.
| pessimizer wrote:
| What does the FCC have to do with the mobility scooter
| coup?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Why would outlaws obey the law and partake in the $10million 5
| year bond?
| supertrope wrote:
| No deposit no service.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I assume you need some licensing to operate a telco and other
| telcos will not accept your traffic without one.
| sobkas wrote:
| All you need is access to SS7/Delimeter, there are people
| who will grant you that for a price. If you stick to
| abusing users and do nothing that would anger telecoms you
| are most of the time free to do what you want.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Robocalls, you say?
|
| https://youtu.be/YVrX767IkdI
|
| https://youtu.be/uIecyRCIFkI
| RajT88 wrote:
| Awesome.
|
| Now go after the timeshare companies.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| We've become so desensitized to spam and robocalls due to the
| scale of the problem - but these should absolutely be treated as
| attempted theft. If there were a gang going door to door trying
| to con elderly or otherwise gullible people into giving them
| thousands of dollars, there would be task forces formed and
| police patrols on every block. Instead, since it happens over the
| internet and on the phone, we give it benign names and treat it
| like a minor hassle and let everyone fend for themselves.
|
| How did we become "okay" with having most of the communication
| that reaches people be malicious? What is Federal law enforcement
| doing? Why the hell hasn't the FCC nuked these companies' ability
| to operate? Who is lobbying _for_ this shit?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to solicit
| votes, so why would they fight against themselves?
|
| A politician's job is to stay in power and work towards their
| reelection, not make your life better. In some cases those
| goals happen to align but that's merely coincidence and should
| not be taken for granted.
|
| In this case, effective anti-robocall legislation would also
| work against their own interests.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Politicians use the exact same companies and tactics to
| solicit votes, so why would they fight against themselves?
|
| Say what you will, the 27th Amendment passed. (IE: makes it
| constitutionally illegal for Representatives to give
| themselves payraises immediately. They have to give pay-
| raises for the _next_ congress, which means it may give a
| pay-raise to the opponent if they lose the election).
|
| Politicians do, and have, been forced by the people to make
| bad choices for themselves for the good of the country. And
| its not like its an easy thing to pass a Constitutional
| Amendment like the 27th.
|
| ---------------
|
| We also used to have very strong laws with regards to
| campaign finance. It was actually our judges who took those
| laws away in the Citizen's United case.
|
| But our politicians actually put those laws into place to
| allow the people to trust them more during campaign finance
| season.
|
| Etc. etc. Plenty of examples. All we need is to convince
| enough people that a particular law is a good idea, and then
| that law will happen.
| joering2 wrote:
| [flagged]
| decremental wrote:
| [dead]
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Weird how police are the most funded they've ever been (every
| year going back like a hundred years with rare and negligible
| exceptions) and yet they are so bad at stopping this alleged
| crime wave.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| I think they're referring to California upping the cutoff
| for shoplifting being a misdemeanor to $950. A quick search
| found this (right leaning) source that might have been the
| one they were reading. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-
| shoplifting-now-de-facto...
|
| Police tend to spend a lot less time on misdemeanors for
| obvious reasons, so makes sense why funding wouldn't impact
| that much.
| m-ee wrote:
| Looting a couple handbags or iPhones easily gets you over
| the felony limit, still no action. The police in the Bay
| Area just really don't want to do their jobs unless
| there's a gun involved. The law change provides a
| convenient scapegoat but doesn't actually explain the
| inaction.
| takinola wrote:
| After I moved states, I discovered a pretty effective anti-spam
| call heuristic. If the call is coming from the same area code as
| my phone number, it is most likely spam.
|
| It seems spam callers assume most calls will likely be from a
| local number and so they initiate calls from the same area code
| as the target. However, since the area code in my local area is
| completely different from mine (since I moved), this tactic
| actually backfires and acts as a pretty good spam signal.
| phlakaton wrote:
| Worse than that (but way more telling), sometimes it's the same
| area code AND prefix. C'mon, man.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I used to think that was a dumb move on the part of the
| scammers, and probably would only be effective in a small
| town where most of the people you know have the same
| prefix... Then I realized that most of the successfully
| scammed victims probably live in those small towns.
| phlakaton wrote:
| Great point! I hadn't thought about that. It's my cell that
| gets hits like this, so the prefix is extra-irrelevant.
| mplewis wrote:
| On iOS, ExchangeBlocker helps block these calls:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exchangeblocker/id1344628290
| pdq wrote:
| Looks like their web site is offline now:
|
| https://www.oneowltelecom.com/
|
| And the LinkedIn profile is gone:
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/company/one-owl-telecom-inc
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| Biden's fcc is actually doing its job compared with Trump's anti
| consumer Ajit Pai.
| happytiger wrote:
| Here here. It was amazing how much of a regulatory capture case
| study that man was...
| tomschlick wrote:
| To be fair, Trump's FCC was pushing STIR/SHAKEN hard but it
| takes years for the major telcos to implement and push it
| downstream to all of the various SIP providers that buy numbers
| from them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN#Implementation
|
| Biden's FCC is able to take action because those were finally
| finished and now can enforce with the call source traceability
| they didn't have a few years ago.
| withinrafael wrote:
| A PDF is also available for those that have trouble reading that
| raw text
| (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-652A1.pdf)
| kazz wrote:
| Now if only they'd take some sort of action against all the spam
| text messages I get. I swear I get a dozen texts a week from
| stringofnumbers@fakeemail.com telling me my amazon account has
| been suspended or a USPS package is on hold.
| happytiger wrote:
| I get 5-10 a day honestly. I have to ban every one of them or
| they become accumulative with repeat calls because they keep
| calling and calling. They frequently then just move to another
| number and we do it again...
|
| It's obviously a handful of companies behaving very badly.
| Let's me share some examples...
|
| They say the same things from the same companies:
|
| - "Hi this is Jamie with the RTC helpdesk I'm calling to let
| you know that substantial business tax incentives that are
| still available through the employee retention tax credit _ _ _
| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ can provide business funding up to
| $26,000 for each W-2 employee you had on staff during 2020 and
| 2021 if you qualify we do all of the work and submit your
| application ...
|
| - "Hi this is James calling from coastal debt resolved we help
| small business owners lower the payments or restructure any
| merchant cash advances that they've taken out and are having a
| difficult time getting them back we thought it was possible you
| might have one or more of these I want to see if we can offer
| our help my direct line is 877-412-0535 please give me a call
| at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your current
| situation thanks and have a great day..."
|
| - "888-310-9170 I'm contacting you regarding a potential refund
| opportunity for your business related to the year 2020 and 2021
| please be aware that this refund does not involve any taxes or
| loans and there is no need for repayment to proceed with the
| refund process we simply need to verify some details regarding
| your businesses employee account during those years if you
| believe this call was not meant for you or if you wish to opt
| out of any future communication please press nine when calling
| back thank you for your time and I'm eagerly awaiting the
| opportunity to speak with you best regards Eva..."
|
| - "Hey this is Mark reaching back out again please give me a
| call back at 205-460-5936 so I did receive a notification today
| at your business is done and Bradstreet score was recently
| upgraded up to a 76 now this is a big deal because I put you in
| the top 10% of businesses in your industry and revenue range
| now because it is great score we're happy to see that your
| business has been preapproved for a business credit line up to
| $500,000 and the interest rate on these lines start his lowest
| 4.8% so they really don't cost very much at one of the best
| things about this offer is how fast we can get the money over
| to you if you were to say yes to this credit line we can have
| the funds over to you within just 24 hours please remember
| these offers don't last forever so please call me back directly
| at 205-460-5936 to make sure there's no confusion that's
| 205-460-5936 hope you have a really good day I have a blessed
| day and thank you..."
|
| - "Hey it's Tiffany with capital group I'm just touching base
| regarding your business plans of corner am I still have
| immediate funding options up to $250,000 with limited to no
| documentation necessary so am I can be reached at 949-4645479
| I'll give you that number again it's ...
|
| The capital group hits me up many times a week from many
| different sources.
|
| I don't even bother to answer calls. I just ask people to leave
| a message. It's made my phone basically unusable.
| lolinder wrote:
| I find that Fastmail's spam filters do a very good job of
| preventing these from ever reaching me. What provider are you
| using?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| They're talking about text messages. You can send a text
| message from an email address. For example
| "8675309@txt.att.net" would send a text message to Jenny if
| she were an AT&T subscriber.
| binkHN wrote:
| I hate to push products, but happiness is the Call Screen built
| into Pixel phones. If it feels the call might not be spam, I
| still have the option to screen it and watch the party converse
| with the Google Assistant in real time--kind of like the
| answering machines of old, but you can read instead of listen.
| [deleted]
| gochi wrote:
| Call Screen is a nice addition to global call control (or
| whatever it gets renamed to per carrier), that just prompts
| callers with a simple "press this button to continue the call".
|
| Went from every day at least a dozen calls mostly from spoofed
| numbers, to only getting the important ones. Call Screen winds
| up being just a nice cherry on top.
| notatoad wrote:
| For my use, 99% of the time i just leave my iPhone set to
| silently reject all calls from unknown numbers, and that works
| for me.
|
| it's pretty rare that there's somebody not already in my
| contacts that i actually want to be able to call me. they can
| go to voicemail, and i'll deal with it later.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I live in Aus. Spam calls use unredacted numbers. Several
| places, including the police, do redact their number. I have
| no idea why they don't use a single egress number so I know
| who's calling, but here we are.
|
| Just imagine reporting to the police that a stalker is
| calling you from an unknown number, only to have the police
| call you on an unknown number.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Except for when a restaurant is calling you to let you know
| that your table is ready.
|
| Or your doctor's office is calling to let you know they
| suddenly have an opening this afternoon.
|
| Or your Uber driver is calling to let you know you left
| something valuable in their car, right after they've dropped
| you off at the airport.
|
| And so forth. I've learned from hard experience that
| silencing all calls from non-contacts bites you in the ass.
| There are legitimate calls that benefit you _now_ , where
| going to voicemail defeats the purpose.
| JohnFen wrote:
| My doctor's office is in my phone book, so that's covered.
|
| For things like restaurants, I know that I'll be receiving
| a call from an unknown number and will just answer it.
|
| For unexpected things, like Uber, they'll leave a message
| on my voice mail. I'll be notified of that as soon as
| they're done and will check it immediately.
|
| That all works for me. It's a shame that I have to do all
| of that rather than just answer the phone, but there's no
| other option that I can see.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. I'm willing to bet that the casual "so what if they
| can't reach me" crowd don't have elderly parents, kids,
| spouses, don't put themselves in group trip situations
| where you don't want to put everyone's number in your
| permanent contacts, etc. No it's pretty much idiocy to
| basically throw away voice calls because you get a usually
| obvious junk call now and then.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| To each their own, and everyone's life has different
| complexities, but a decade of never answering a number I
| don't know has yet to be a problem. A few times a year I'll
| get a message from the doctor on my _answering machine_.
| That's about it.
|
| Generally they prey on people who cannot override their
| fear of missing out. It's the "you may have already won!"
| trick in a different format.
| TylerE wrote:
| I would do that, but my doctors office seems to have at least
| 100 phone lines, and the number that shows up on the caller
| is basically random after the first 4 digits.
| renewiltord wrote:
| If you use Google Fi, you just view the voice transcript
| and then call back.
| TylerE wrote:
| Oh I wish. I'm in Optimum (Former Suddenlink) territory.
|
| It's only in the past year I was able to upgrade from
| 300mbps to gigabit, and it ain't fiber. Also obvious that
| the local techs have no clue what they're doing since the
| link goes down several times a night briefly, always at
| exactly 15 minutes after the hour. It's obvious there's a
| switch or something that they're just rebooting every
| night.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Google Fi != Google Fiber
|
| One is a cell phone plan, one is an ISP.
| TylerE wrote:
| Oh. Shrug. I hate android so I don't really follow that
| ecosystem
| pixl97 wrote:
| Quite often you'll find that the doctors office is part of
| a larger system for an entire medical center. Your call can
| get routed out any open physical line. These days fully
| VOIP systems will mask the number as the primary, but some
| systems still have physical connectivity to the phone
| companny.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| I don't like rejecting calls. I prefer they go to voice
| mail/transcription, so I set my main system ringtone to a few
| seconds of silence, and then a custom ringtone for everyone
| in my contact list (plus a few additional ringtones for
| family and close friends).
|
| Bonus, if I happen to notice the phone screen light up with
| an unknown number and I know I'm waiting for a service
| station to call, I can always try my luck that it is actually
| legit.
| Trias11 wrote:
| This.
|
| Problem solved.
| ars wrote:
| Do you have family? Because I've heard horror stories of
| people who did this, and then no one could contact them when
| a family member was seriously hurt.
| njovin wrote:
| I do this and I have family. If somebody leaves a voicemail
| I check it right away.
|
| About 6 months ago I started getting 10-30 calls per day so
| I really have no other option. Most of them are Medicare
| scammers (I'm not even old enough to qualify). I cannot
| fathom how:
|
| 1. The FCC/telcos have managed to allow anyone to spoof any
| number they like with no oversight and no (effective) abuse
| reporting system. This has been going on for years with
| absolutely no improvement.
|
| 2. Medicare is apparently so easy to scam out of money that
| all they need is my name and birthday to get money out of
| the system on my behalf. When I've answered and played
| along by giving them fake information, they always hang up
| as soon as they have these 2 pieces of info.
| manicennui wrote:
| If scamming Medicare were that easy, they would just buy
| a list.
| thfuran wrote:
| I set up an IVR that requires (non-white listed) callers to
| press a number to ring through. My spam calls went from
| several most days to less than one a year. I suppose I also
| miss out on automated appointment reminders, but whatever.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| This is the one feature I really wish iPhone had.
| coder543 wrote:
| iOS 17 won't be bringing the automatic call screening, but it
| will be bringing the ability to send calls to "voicemail" and
| screen them yourself, picking up if you feel like it's worth
| answering.
| Laremere wrote:
| Honestly, this is what I wish Android's call screen was.
| Call screen starts by explaining itself, which I think
| could waste time, can be confusing, and possibly is
| insulting. Compared to a quick "Hey please leave a message
| after the beep."
|
| I want to be able to send basically all unexpected calls to
| the screening, and only pick up if it's something I want to
| respond to right now. It feels rude to, eg, send a neighbor
| to a call screening service when I definitely have their
| number but don't want to drop what I'm doing to hear them
| complain about something.
| cdchn wrote:
| Pretty much the major thing preventing me from switching to
| iPhone at this point.
| neeleshs wrote:
| 100%. Call Screen and the usual spam detector in Pixel has made
| call spam a non issue. I also don't pickup any calls that are
| not from my phonebook and let them go to VM/assistant, and
| listen to them immediately.
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| This so much. I don't remember that spam calls exist anymore
| until I read a post someone complaining about getting spam
| calls. It works so well. I haven't had a false negative in the
| 3 years of using it. All the people who truly wanted to contact
| me would say something into the assistant, and the phone rang,
| and I'd pick it up.
| onedognight wrote:
| Apple does this as well, but this is a Band-Aid. Think of the
| old people who get scammed by these calls. This is a system
| issue and should be fixed as such. It's frankly embarrassing
| how the phone companies have effectively killed the "phone
| call" through their neglect.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > phone companies have effectively killed the "phone call"
| through their neglect.
|
| They haven't - they're still making bank on the spam
| traffic, which is also why they're reluctant to implement
| solutions despite it technically being trivial.
|
| If phone spam was actually making a dent in revenue (aka
| legitimate call revenue was going down and the revenue from
| spam wasn't making up for it) they would've got their act
| together very quickly.
| luma wrote:
| Nope, not quite public yet. Google has had this for years
| but Apple is just now about to get it with the release of
| iOS 17 and "live voicemail". Still have a month or so
| before that's out of beta.
| p_j_w wrote:
| I've recently gotten an iPhone (coming from a Pixel 7), and
| it's honestly not in the same league for dealing with Spam
| calls. It's much more of an annoyance since I switched.
| rrauenza wrote:
| I really like it when someone in the middle has changed the
| caller id to say "FRAUDULENT".
|
| Someone I know believes strongly that the telco's don't care to
| police and would rather push people onto cheaper to maintain
| mobile technology. (We get orders of magnitude more scammer calls
| on our landline than our mobiles.) But there's a lot of
| assumptions in that belief...
|
| Is there any truth to those economics? Is there a bad incentive
| here for the telcos?
| AdrianEGraphene wrote:
| The product isn't necessarily true (mobile -> landline push),
| but the profit-seeking is certainly expected, as it is for all
| businesses. While the amount of minutes & attentions that are
| generated from spam calls helps the telcos, because they get
| paid either way... that doesn't mean they're negligent. They
| just don't have the right tools to police this since they're
| common carriers. Things are changing little by little and with
| upcoming changes in telco infrastructure, I expect Q4 this year
| to show a strong signal of what the future holds.
| throw9away6 wrote:
| Just force them to buy phone numbers like we sell ips. Each
| number could be $1 and you burn them when an operator gets caught
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| And soon we will have 20-digit numbers :-)
| callalex wrote:
| That's almost exactly how the system currently works. The spam
| is still profitable despite that.
| Rygian wrote:
| Then the price is not right. Make it expensive from the
| start, and then gradually give back most of the price when
| the user has had a good standing for long enough.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Sort of like charging a deposit on them? Don't screw it up
| for a year and we'll apply it to your next bill?
| kabdib wrote:
| They'll just buy numbers with more stolen money.
| re wrote:
| The submitted text file is missing some formatting, making it
| difficult to read. Links to PDFs for this letter, as well as a
| related press release and a letter sent to One Owl, are available
| here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-notifies-carriers-
| repeated-...
| to11mtm wrote:
| OK now do the bigger providers that allow robotexting without
| consent...
|
| I received unsolicited texts from a "Buy your house cash" company
| last year. Of course, they did not identify the company name in
| the texts, not even with prompting...
|
| I was able to trace the number to a larger provider... [0] The
| provider was unwilling to tell me who originally called me. Which
| is _strange_. If a company wants my business, shouldn 't they be
| willing to say who they are? If a VOIP/TOIP provider doesn't
| disclose who communicates with you, isn't that a way to shield
| harassment?
|
| But, as always, it's about who pays the most money to the
| lawmakers via lobbying...
|
| [0] - By 'Large', I will say that they are a provider for
| Microsoft Teams Voice calls/texts in the US.
| supertrope wrote:
| The US cellular industry is cracking down on SMS spam. Lots of
| "legitimate" businesses that rely on SMS are complaining about
| 10DLC.
| to11mtm wrote:
| Yeah, I actually worked on the compliance side for a publicly
| traded company.
|
| The amount of work 'legitimate' providers make you put in can
| sometimes be painful, especially when they don't do what they
| say they are gonna do. But we did our part to make sure we
| stayed compliant. Making sure that even our 'semi-automated'
| messages (i.e. the user selected from a dropdown and the
| template filled in blanks) were registered, making sure
| appropriate unsubscribe verbiage was always present, while
| still fitting meaningful context into 160 characters. _Then_
| making sure each of those messages was registered, reviewed,
| and approved with the provider. Unfortunately there were
| still times that the provider failed to do their part, and
| despite being told we were 'good to go' we would discover a
| large volume of our texts were blocked by our provider or a
| downstream network, because someone dropped the ball. [0]
|
| I guess that's what frustrates me; our company did the right
| work, and even then our provider sometimes got in the way
| with their own mistakes... But far less scrupulous companies
| appear to get away with all sorts of non-compliance and their
| provider doesn't care for whatever reason. [1]
|
| [0] - Worth mentioning, the texts in question were not even
| solicitations. They were texts related to the 'process'
| people had already agreed to. Without divulging the actual
| industry, the best analogy would be things like being told
| that there was a problem with your vehicle order and to call
| us, or that your vehicle had been delivered was ready to be
| picked up tomorrow. [2]
|
| [1] - My gut says, the reason those providers don't care, is
| that they get to collect more money for more texts sent.
|
| [2] - No, it wasn't automotive, I'm just trying to give a
| good analogy here. Less life impacting than surgery but more
| life impacting than a simple package delivery.
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